By Steve Roulstone
Last year I had cause to write a Blog about the manner in which Utility Warehouse try to invoice Landlords when they have closed their account and the Tenant has not sorted the new supply out to their satisfaction. Not because they had not been contacted, not even because they had no contact details for the Tenant, no, purely because they were not satisfied with the manner in which the new account had been opened.
12 Months on?
No change, even though at the time, I had several long involved conversations with them about the letters I was receiving, even though the Tenant was doing everything possible to pay for their own account, Utility Warehouse continued to write to me as if the outstanding invoice was my responsibility. I can assure you the resulting phone calls were many and heated, but it took something like six weeks to straightened matters out and confirm the new Tenant was in deed, responsible for their own costs!
Time for another letter.
It was not that they had written again or even the consequences of the content of the letter that has dismayed me this time, but the fact that they had failed to close my account, even though their operatives tried to tell me they had (strange because the letter had my name and the same old account number on it!) Well, I say my name; they had managed to change the spelling and actually written to my next door neighbour therefore having the wrong address.
Unbelievable arrogance.
The letter was a request to set up a Direct Debit because mine had just been closed and whilst I have to admit that when I first called, my temper was not at its best, I did not take kindly to the UW representative trying to tell me they must be correct and that I was wrong in my assumptions, even when I asked what dates they had on the account and she confirmed it had closed in August 2010, the penny did not drop. I left her to work out that if the account had been closed in 2010 there was no longer any need for a DD to be set up!
Human error or system.
I called again! The excuse for the error, for error it obviously was, was what really gets to me about such organisations, because they tried to tell me that the letter with the old account number on it, with the change of spelling of my name and my next door neighbours address, must have been a technical error. Now is it me? Or is it blindingly difficult for a computer to randomly contact me a year after our last contact, with the name spelt wrong and at the wrong address? No, to me this must be human error and it just raises huge questions about the manner in which they operate.
Do they care?
The reaction that you receive from UW confirms without doubt that the answer is no, they really don’t, I laughed sarcastically at their representative when he said it was computer error and he indignantly asked me why I was laughing. Well the actual answer is the frustration of dealing with them, what he got was me asking if he wanted to know the full story of my dealings with them because then he might just understand! No they do not care and I would love somebody to convince me differently, because as all Letting Agents are aware, the most difficult and unorganised companies we have to deal within our day to day dealings would be confirmed by everybody as Utility Companies!!
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